


songs of the times

by hdnprplflwrs



Series: i just wanna be part of your symphony [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bars and Pubs, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Day At The Beach, Drunk!Keith, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Disaster Keith (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Lance is a good dancer, M/M, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Romance, Songfic, boxer!keith, keith has a motorbike obviously, kolivan is a grumpy uncle, lance loves the beach, shiro is such a dad, spanish!lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23137240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hdnprplflwrs/pseuds/hdnprplflwrs
Summary: If Keith turns his head right before the beat drops, maybe they could kiss and fireworks would explode in the background. If Keith turns his head, Lance would get the rom-com ending he’s always wanted in a movie about his life. Instead, Keith lets the moment pass by, content to enjoy the descending sun with his best friend on a sand dune in California, buzzed with finals study guides forgotten in Arizona.He sits and watches.Later on, he’d have to listen to Lance gripe aboutnot pulling your stupid face off the sky and kissing the dumbfounded look offit, but he really couldn’t know the future.And this is where it starts.Alternately:Five times Keith wants to kiss Lance, and one time he actually did.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron), minor Shiro/Matt
Series: i just wanna be part of your symphony [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1677415
Comments: 8
Kudos: 134





	songs of the times

**Author's Note:**

> this fic started out as one thing but became another and im kind of glad about that.

**_I. Queen, 1977_ **

****Keith is pleasantly buzzed on the cheap beer that Pidge managed to nick from the convenience store she and Matt manned. He feels warm, but not in the “liquid confidence” way beer is supposedly for. He feels like he’s won (exactly what, he could care less).

He watches the sunset from his seat atop a sand dune, the distant chatter of his friends and smells of Hunk’s cooking familiar and comforting. Surprisingly, his legs didn’t ache as much as he thought it would after over twelve hours stuck in a van from Arizona to SoCal. Thank goodness the only thing he had to deal with were Shiro’s griping about how stupid it was, going to a beach a few weeks before finals, and the constant jab of Matt’s elbows as he spent the ride writing, like, five research papers or something. If he’d have to sit next to Lance, the whole ordeal would be ten times worse considering Keith’s tendency to internally scream whenever they so much as brushed skin together and _goddamn it_ he was too whipped for this shit.

 _Whatever_ , he thinks. Lance had immediately chatted up this beautiful surfer with long bleached hair and tanned skin who was here with her uncle who looked very much the opposite of her, with his ginger hair carefully curled and a mustache that could rival any cartoon character's, and really Keith should have figured that would happen because Lance flirted with anything that had two legs. She’s pretty, Keith admits. Probably a lot better than the bumbling blondes Lance usually likes. She didn’t take notice of any of Lance’s advancements, which became amusing in and of itself because that just meant he upped the anti.

At least he stopped the pick up lines. Those were grating after, like, two seconds.

Unrequited feelings aside, he takes a swig from the bottle currently in his hand, trying to miss his tongue so that he doesn’t have to taste it, at least. Lime wedges could only do so much.

He couldn’t tell if the lethargy was from the beer or from the barbecue. Hunk charred a _mean_ rib. And his homemade sauce was out of this world, quite literally. Or maybe it was from the sheer amount of s’mores Pidge made. She’d managed to finish off what the rest of them couldn’t finish, surprisingly, considering her stature. He’s been jacked up on enough sugar to last him a decade. Whichever it was, he didn’t feel like moving. At all.

Shifting sands of pink and blue make way for purple waves crashing lazily on the shore, a few boats breaking the horizon line and the endless stretch of water seemingly peaceful. The sunset is almost too perfect, melding oranges, yellows, and reds coating the clouds like carnival cotton candy. Californian sunsets are something else, Keith decides. They’re not Arizona sunsets, blustering hot as the winds settle down to make way for frigid night gusts. Arizona sunsets are heavy ombrés and a ring of fire around the white hot sun, clouds rarely making an appearance. Otherwise, sunsets are covered with angry clouds, the threat of rain hanging in the air or bucketfuls of water falling from the sky, no in between.

California sunsets are the one Keith sees all the time in Instagram posts and Tumblr reblogs, the ones where you can stare at the sun because it wears a lazy smile. Where the clouds do not diminish its beauty, but add to its ethereal qualities.

There’s also the added quality of a beach. Beaches makes everything ten times better, in Keith’s opinion. That, and ice cream. He digs his toes in the sand and watches it fall off his nails. The he flicks some in the air and frowns when it somehow gets in his eyes. Yeah, nope.

Keith hears a laugh down where he’d left his friends and he hates how he immediately recognizes it as Lance. Keith could see him in California. The little he’s seen of California is perfect: rolling fields, towering hills, and the small grains of sand between his toes. Salty air, burning sun without the humidity, and (from what he’s heard) the idea that one could ski in the mountains in the morning and surf in the evening without leaving the state. Rife with potential and gorgeous besides.

Another sip of beer. It tastes more like lime than the last one, which means he’s almost done. Which sucks. He doesn’t want to roll/walk all the way down the dune for another beer. He feels full, both of the eating kind and the feeling kind.

 _Lance and the sunset, Lance and the sunset_ , he chants in his head, blue eyes swimming before him, merging with the ocean, close-cropped copper hair shining in the sun, tanned expanses of sand and lithe muscles poorly hidden under skin. Heated arguments as playful as the glittering ocean, laughs drifting in the breeze. Lance dunked him twice. He shoved Lance back into the water. Later on, he tripped him (it wasn’t his fault Lance had long, gangly legs).

He throws his arms behind him, not particularly caring where his beer bottle ends up. The cap was in the trash and he’s always liked sea glass. Shiro would probably make him find it later anyways because he’s nice that way, the graduate kid. 

He lets his head lol back, more relaxed than he’s ever been in ages. He feels like this is contentment, but then again it could just be the beer.

“Hello, stranger.”

Lance manages to hit Keith no less than three times in various places with various parts of his limbs, and each time Keith feels a shiver run up and down his spine. A couple years ago, his twink self probably would have blushed a brilliant tomato red, but he’s managed to hide it well enough that Pidge, Shiro and occasionally Hunk if he was feeling particularly vindictive would only spare him glances and then shrug at his lack of a reaction.

“Are you ready to be a senior in college, _mi hermano_?” Keith doesn’t even have to open his eyes to know that Lance has the corner of his mouth pulled up into that half-smile that he thought made all the girls swoon but really just made Keith groan (and think about that smile for hours later). An elbow drops on his knee, glass dripping with frigid water brushing against his skin. “Missed you for a bit there.”

“Mmm,” Keith hums. “Why, has Surfer Girl left you so utterly bereft of love that you come to the least loving person to fill that gaping hole of yours?”

He listens to Lance splutter until he finally manages out, “You’re the worst. I can’t believe I climbed a sand dune for your ungrateful ass.” Lance never was quiet when he ate, so Keith waited for him to finish downing his beer. “Her name’s Allura, by the way. Her uncle’s Coran. She’s nice.”

Keith just snorted, peeking through his lashes to (finally) look at Lance.

He was staring into the sunset, golden rays of sunlight painting his bronze skin a glowing, burning orange. He’d taken off his shirt at some point. From his position, Keith could see every dip and contour of sand-encrusted and water droplet skin, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t light a fire in his stomach.

Lance suddenly flops down beside Keith, his arms falling on the sand over his head as he stretches. The sunset makes everything worse as Keith’s eyes snap like a magnet to metal over the blue and orange that constituted Lance’s body from his arms to — he gulps— the very clear V-line that disappears into trunks that Lance clearly hadn’t tied too tightly.

He’s about to reach up and hug his knees when there’s a hand at his elbow and his world flickered in purple and pinks until he’s on his back next to Lance, staring at the sky quickly deepening in color. “Ow.”

“It’s soft sand,” Lance scoffs. “Jesus.”

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, kettle.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, _esé_?”

“Does it have to be on a crown and a sash for you to pronounce yourself as a drama queen?” Keith deadpans.

“ _Excuse_ me, Mr. Emo.”

Keith and Lance are friends in the arguing-old-married-couple variety pack, which leaves them to deal with confused looks and questions ranging from “Are you guys dating?” to “Do you guys, like, actually hate each other?” As much as Keith wanted it to be true, alas, he was left alone as Lance went through the cycles of relationships. As for the former question, it had taken the entirety of freshman year for Keith to figure out that Lance actually didn’t hate him.

He could feel Lance’s eyes on him.

Music starts trickling in from the speaker Matt insisted that they bring.

_I've paid my dues/ Time after time....._

If Keith turns his head right before the beat drops, maybe they could kiss and fireworks would explode in the background. If Keith turns his head, Lance would get the rom-com ending he’s always wanted in a movie about his life. If Keith turns his head, maybe he’d stop pining for once.

Instead, Keith lets the moment pass by, content to enjoy the descending sun with his best friend on a sand dune in California, buzzed with finals study guides forgotten in Arizona. He refuses to consider the what-ifs and the worst case and the best case scenarios.

He sits and watches.

Later on, he’d have to listen to Lance gripe about _not pulling your stupid face off the sky and kissing the dumbfounded look offit_ , but he really couldn’t know the future.

And this is where it starts.

**_II. Lady Gaga, 2009_ **

****He’s always wanted to kiss Lance, but never so much as when a month after California, he and Lance got into an earth-shattering, glass-breaking argument.

He just didn’t see why Lance had to go on a date with _Nyma_ , of all the girls on campus. He’d thought Lance was smarter than this. Hell, if _Keith_ has heard of Nyma’s sorostitute-ness, he’d figured Lance would have some very large alarm bells screeching on either side of his stupid face that her rep probably _meant_ something. It’s already their fifth date and Keith doesn’t understand how Lance can’t see that Nyma’s just using him.

Lance is too kind, Keith thinks, and that is what makes him so _utterly_ clueless and endearing. Nyma’s taken five of his sweaters and hasn’t even offered to split the bill. He’s pretty sure that Nyma’s “sickness” is really just her wanting to be Ubered around in whatever luxury car is available. Keith knows that he shouldn’t notice that Lance has picked up extra shifts and looks like he could barely stand some days, but it’s hard to ignore when your best friend is robbing their health for someone who’ll dump them as soon as Lance can’t keep up with her demands.

Suddenly, their argument devolves into _you’ve always thought you were better than the rest or us and look at yourself, you asshole, you’re no better_ and _wow what a convincing argument_ , the _I know who you are but what am I_ and _better than you, you freaking shallow dumbfuck_ and all Keith can feel is a raging anger in his chest that he thought he’d gotten rid of years ago.

He’s gotten so tired of feeling like a—a convenience to Lance, someone to talk to when Pidge and Hunk weren’t available, someone’s couch to crash when locked out of his apartment, someone’s roommate who has to listen to all the moans and groans and pants as Lance brings back nameless people to his room (although he must admit, Lance has decreased the amount of lovers he had in his bed by a lot this year). He’s tired of holding up Lance’s shoulder when he’s drunk and sobbing about his exes, he’s tired of Lance copying his homework because he was somehow too busy to do it in the first place, he’s tired of Lance being so close but _so far_ , feet away but also on a different solar system.

But Lance looks so hot, standing there all angry and bothered, thin brows scrunched and lines marring his flawless face and Keith wants to both punch him in his beautiful blue eyes and cradle Lance while he kissed away the rage shadowing his body.

Then he remembers he’s arguing with _Lance_.

He spouts something that he’d probably regret later if he ever managed to _remember_ what he said and that shuts Lance up.

They’re both breathing heavily and it’s just that, two chests heaving for air as tension, thick and unforgiving, swirls between them, gathers at their feet, pools in their hands.

“That’s _rich_ ,” Lance finally snorts, derision oh-so-evident in his tone, “coming from a needy college expulsion case with a temper a mile long.”

Keith flinches and he doesn’t even try to hide it this time. He feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

Barely a week ago, he’d been expelled. He’d gotten into a fistfight with their (well, in Keith’s case, former) university’s best quarterback and Keith had not said a word, in his defense or otherwise, to anybody. Pidge, Hunk, Matt, Shiro, and then Lance had all tried to wheedle the _why_ out of him, but he’d slammed the door in their faces, sometimes literally.

He’d seen red when the jock opened his mouth. Smoldering, taunting _bloodred_ as he grabbed the jock’s shoulder and socked him right in the jaw, his knuckles be damned.

_—hell, you think the sorostitutes are good? Try that Lance McClain, what a dude—_

_—so hard he couldn’t walk—_

_—what a pretty little ass, so willing and eager—_

_—oh yes, right there! Right there, ngghh—_

Mocking, teasing, treating Lance like a piece of meat to be devoured. Acting out the scene in public view like Lance meant nothing, Lance didn’t mean nothing, he deserved the world—

He tried to chalk it up to the fact that no one should be spoken of like an object as the jock in question pounded into Keith, blood now splattering the sidewalk and their clothes as Keith put all his boxing training to use. He knew he was telling himself a lie, but he kept at it. _No one_ should be used, no one should be spoken of like a _toy_ , Lance _shouldn’t be_ a _joke_. A joke.

Admitting that he’d punched the guy (who was also expelled, but that did nothing to ease Keith’s conscience) for Lance would be the same thing as admitting that Keith likes him more than he should. It’s telling Lance that he’s _so in love with him_ and has been for years and it was _worth it_ , every punch, every bruise and cut and drop of blood that Lance helped him clean up afterwards.

Lance would _always_ be worth it, and Keith _hates_ how much Lance means to him.

Clearly, he doesn’t mean much to Lance.

Each second digs the knife in more, twisting _painfully_ as Keith tries to remember how to breathe. Forcing his lungs to expand and contract does nothing to soothe the ache in his gut and maybe this was all for nothing. Maybe making friends was a bad move. Falling for Lance definitely was one of the worst mistakes of his life.

Because this shit _fucking hurt_.

“Go, then,” he spits out hoarsely. “If I’m such a waste of your time, go. Get out. Go on your date and I’ll pack my shit up and stay at Matt’s and Shiro’s place while you live your evidently _much better life_ now that you’ve gotten rid of the source of all your _fucking problems_.”

He watches Lance open his mouth. Close it. The urge to kiss him is still there, under his skin, but he’s too angry and tired to say anything else.

Lance gives up and stomps his foot, grabbing his keys from their tiny kitchen table as the front door slams behind his sloping back.

The billowing silence that follows speaks volumes. Keith could write enough to surpass the word count in Encyclopedia Britannica with how slammingly hard Lance’s answer hits him. The knife is out of his stomach and now he’s left to rot.

He’s never been so glad that he rarely buys clothes or anything of importance, because he’s out the door with a suitcase in hand and his backpack over his shoulder in no less than ten minutes.

His phone decides to mock him and starts playing “Bad Romance,” his ringtone for Lance because Keith had had bought the entirety of Lady Gaga's discography and Keith had had no jurisdiction whatsoever over his phone when Lance put the song in as his ringtone. Lance hadn't appreciated any of Keith's other songs available to be a ringtone so he stuck with that one and Keith never felt like changing it, probably due to his crush more than generic laziness. He turns it on silent.

If he’d stayed for five more minutes, he might have crashed into Lance, who had turned his car around. Lance had driven as fast as he could, but Keith’s motorcycle was faster and Lance was met with an empty bed that used to be Keith’s and unendurable silence.

_**III. Harry Styles, 2019** _

Keith was mind-numbingly drunk off his _ass_ now, and he blamed it on his stupid ex-roommate.

Stupid, stupid, pretty boy Lance.

He takes a sip of the lurid blue punch that is clearly laced with like fifty different things and tries to discern what all the pretty lights mean. There’s a yellow one. Ooh, and a very nice purple one. But he decides that the blue one is the best. The blue is pretty.

It’s a month into the summer and he hasn’t talked to Lance since he walked out that day. Shiro and Matt, bless their hearts, didn’t push it or ask any questions when Keith had shown up at their door, windswept and hungry. They just let him stay.

He ignored the memory of their argument, pressing flush on his mental toilet bowl more times than he could count. He dove into his work, teaching classes on self defense and boxing, taking up odd jobs and learning a lot of technical skills that college probably would’ve just dumped in his lap and said, _figure this out, there’s a test Monday_.

He took up the twin plastic knives he’d bought for that one class he’d had on how to wield them and relearned that, and is slowly making his way through a bo staff now. It wasn’t as easy as his blades, but the ache in his arms and the heavy staff in his hands took away all pretense of the past and allowed him to focus on the present.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen Hunk and Pidge either and their group rarely got together anymore (Keith never went to anything they suggested over summer anyways because Lance might be there). It made sense. Pidge and Hunk were Lance’s friends first.

More alcohol.

He goes to down the rest of his glass when he realizes that the hand holding his glass won’t move.

It might be stuck to the table.

He pokes it. There is something stuck to his hand, and it’s warm and squishy, so he pokes it again.

There might be someone blabbering in his ear, but he’s too busy feeling the thing on his wrist that stopped him from drinking. He can’t really see, his eyesight is wobbling all over the place and it’s dark. He can’t even tell if he’s inside or outside, but he remembers flashing his ID at someone.

The thing is attached to something else, and _oh fuck_ now he’s being pulled along with the something else and _why is his cup missing_? He wants a drink. He needs a hangover tomorrow because his roommate is a dick and now he hates him.

Keith suddenly feels chills runs up his arms and now he’s _cold_. The pretty lights are gone and the only thing that’s warm is the thing holding onto him, so Keith pulls on it with his other hand and _ooh, the rest of it is warm too_ , and he wraps his arms around it like a lifeline. It’s attached to an even warmer, bigger thing, so Keith holds that, too. He can hear the music now, and it’s a song that drunk Keith likes. It’s been on the radio. He hums along, singing the only two words he knows. _Adore you. Adore you._

The thing rumbles quietly and it sounds nice. Keith pokes the thing because he wants it to make that pretty noise again. He likes poking whoever this is. He realizes that this is a person. _Stranger danger._ Shiro says he shouldn’t go home with strangers. Bad idea. But the thing-person didn’t make the pretty noise again and Keith wants it to, so he pokes it again.

The person makes the pretty noise and it’s bigger and louder but still beautiful and Keith loves it. It sounds like Lance when he laughs.

_Yeah?_

Yeah, he’s too pretty. I like his eyes. They’re very blue. Like the ocean. I like his eyes. He belongs in California. He liked it in California. His eyes are nice.

_I bet they are._

They’re better when he smiles, though. He wasn’t smiling when I saw him last.

Keith feels like he’s floating and he realizes that he’s stopped walking. His arms reach around and he’s being carried by someone, but he can’t see who, but they feel nice. He buries his face in their neck because he doesn’t want to cry about Lance.

I make everyone leave. He left me and I don’t remember why. We were just screaming all of a sudden. Oh, wait. I was mad. He was mad. He was leaving again.

_Le-leaving for where?_

I don’t know. He was going away from me. He made me feel bad. After everything....I miss him. I liked it when he smiled. He has a very pretty smile.

_I—I‘ll bet._

I’d punch the world to see him smile. No, wait. I can’t give him the world if it’s all punched out. I could punch the quarterback, the quarterback was a dick. He wasn’t being nice about Lance. I didn’t like it. I punched him because he was a dick.

I don’t want him to leave again. I hate running. My chest hurts now. Stupid, stupid, pretty Lance. I want to kiss him a lot. But I can’t kiss him because he deserves more than me. I want to kiss his pretty, pretty, pretty face. I miss him so much. Everything’s worse without him. Can I have a drink? Where are we going?

_We—you’re, you’re going home._

No, that’s not right.

Lance is home.

Keith remembers flickering lights, no more cold, his bed, his very soft bed, something heavy being draped over him. Whispers. Something soft pressing against his forehead.

Then he slept.

**_IV. Coldplay, 2002_ **

****He doesn’t miss the glances exchanged by Matt or Shiro the next morning, so he flips them off as he hugs the toilet, trying desperately to keep his hair from getting vomit all over it.

He can barely remember anything that happened last night, which is what last night was supposed to do, so he supposes he succeeded. He forgot how much hangovers hurt, but it’s workable. He made the responsible decisions and called in sick to all previous events anyways, so he has at least a day before he goes back to work.

He and Lance were studying aerospace engineering together. He remembers the first day of class. He thought he was late, but then again, he hadn’t met Lance yet.

Lance McClain came sauntering into class, cool as you please, books in his arm and backpack split open. Everyone watched as he downed the coffee in his hand, threw it into the trash, had the audacity to wink at the teacher (“Hey, Teach!”), and plopped into the nearest open seat.

Which was next to Keith.

And that was when Keith decided to ignore Lance even though he was really hot and _goddamn it_ , it’s too early to be attracted to someone who you have to sit next to for the rest of the year.

And it should come as no surprise that they’re eventually put together in a semester—long (or something) project together and that’s how Keith meets Pidge and Hunk, Lance’s best friends from way back when. They’re cool and being friends with them also makes Shiro get off his ass about making friends in college.

Keith would find it strange that he’d walk in when Lance texted him to meet at his apartment to see Pidge and Hunk with shit-eating grins on their faces and Lance a flaming magenta, but he’d always chalked it up to some girl/guy/they/person Lance liked in that moment. It didn’t help that Pidge and Hunk would drop teasing comments that would fly over Keith’s head but make Lance’s ears pink. Apparently he’d get even more bristly after that (Lance’s words, not his) and it was a couple meetings where this happened when Lance started his one-sided rivalry. Who could finish their essay first, who had the most words, who could answer the most questions in class, who got a better grade. Keith’s pretty sure that Lance had a whole point system for this kind of thing as the year went on. 

Then he started noticing a pattern to their meetings in which it was just him and Lance without Pidge and Hunk, and honestly, Keith was kind of glad. He and Pidge got on well with the sheer amount of classes they realized that they share (also, they realized that Matt and Shiro were dating and maybe-step-siblings came into the equation) and he and Hunk started a game night where they played everything from Super Smash Bros to speedrunning every Super Mario game they could find. While that meant friends, he realized that he was less likely to get into arguments with Lance if he wasn’t wondering who Lance liked and Lance probably noticed because the rest of their meetings were fairly Pidge and Hunk free. Again, no complaints from Keith.

Lance dropped the whole rivalry thing when Keith got fed up and asked him straight to his face why Lance hated him so much. He’d wanted to kiss Lance then, when Lance told him that he’d started the whole thing up because he’d wanted to be friends with Keith but he’d had no idea how to go about doing so when Keith was basically an asshole (his words) and all Keith had said was that Lance just had to ask. Then Lance complained for weeks afterwards that he’d wasted all that time arguing with Keith when all he needed to do was propose and every time that came up Keith had that undeniable urge to kiss him then, too.

He couldn’t help it if Lance was so damn kissable.

He also shouldn’t be thinking of kissing at all when staring at his own throw up.

He finds a hairtie around his wrist and manages to pull some of his hair back before the next wave of nausea comes and he’s dry heaving into the toilet.

The cold porcelain just reminds him of how empty his arms are, how empty they have been since he was left alone on a stranger’s porch, and he’s fucked up the one thing that made him feel less alone. He hates the feeling because it echoes throughout his bones, reaching his fingertips and loudest at his heart. It’s the opposite of whole, unforgiving and lonely.

This is every form of pain Keith can think of. This is roommate rejection, friend rejection, brother rejection.

_Heartbreak rejection._

His wrists rest on the edge of the toilet seat, fingers slack as his toes curl. 

He gets up. Flushes the toilet. Walks to the sink and splashed water in his face, trying to get the sick off his skin before he starts crying because he’s pathetic. He shouldn’t have fallen in love with his best friend.

He sinks to the floor and buries his head in his knees because he really doesn’t know what the hell to do anymore. It’s been a month and this thing with Lance affects him as much as it did the day Keith left.

_Shit._

He’s gone soft.

Shiro comes in after a while, once Keith’s butt has frozen over from sitting on tile for so long. He doesn’t say anything; instead, he drops to the floor and wraps his arms around Keith.

He lets himself be held. He holds tighter, in fact, gripping Shiro’s shirt and pulling him closer as if he’s the only lifeline Keith has left.

Everything hurts, but as time passes, the hurt will fade. Keith’s had too much experience with this kind of thing that really he’s just going through another cycle of rejection.

It’s later on in the day, when Matt, Shiro, and Keith are all parked on the couch and watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory when Shiro finally says something.

“Lance brought you home yesterday.”

“Mmm.” Keith drinks his fifth cup of coffee. Matt hasn’t cut him off yet, which is surprising. He’s not affected by this information. Really, Lance was probably doing a favor to him or something. He should feel curious as to why he’d do that in the first place, but he doesn’t care anymore. He shouldn’t.

“Do you remember anything from yesterday? Because he basically had a meltdown right after he dropped you off to bed.” Matt’s now clinging like a koala bear to Shiro as he sleeps, and Shiro sometimes drops kisses on his head as Matt fingers the hem of Shiro’s shirt. Keith’s happy for them, but he wants what they have so much that its a miracle he’s lasted this long when they’re all googly-eyed at each other.

Keith frowns. “Not really. I was at the frat house for a while and then I remember floating home or something. Why’d he have a meltdown?”

“He kept going on about how he’d fucked everything up. That you’d attacked that jock dude to, like, defend his honor and how you thought he hated you when he thought you hated him or something?”

Keith considers this. Then he takes a sip of coffee. “No comment. I was drunk. It’s nothing.”

“Drunk words are sober thoughts.”

“Fuck off. I plead the Fifth.”

Shiro sighs over the canned laughter emitting from the television. “What was the jock saying about Lance, at least? What made you so angry you had to _punch_ the guy?”

Keith knows that Shiro’s just going to wait for an answer, whether it be hours or days. Shiro’s never one to beat around the bush with Keith because he knows Keith hates it when people don’t give it to him straight (it was an inside joke between the two of them for, like, two months when Keith came out of the closet) and Keith knows that Shiro does that. But this time, Keith doesn’t have an answer.

At least, not an answer he can share without facing its repercussions.

So, he lies.

“Can’t remember. I think I got knocked in the head too hard.”

For once, Shiro doesn’t push it, and Keith thinks that maybe Shiro bought it. He probably didn’t, but for the sake of Keith’s peace of mind he’ll pretend like Shiro did, anyhow.

He tells himself that it’s for his peace of mind that he brings his A-game when he teaches his students, it’s for his peace of mind that he pushes Lance out of his head, it’s for his peace of mind that he’s punching bags at two in the morning until his knuckles are damn near splitting open.

He doesn’t sneak into frat parties anymore for the booze. Instead, he finds himself listening to Coldplay as he absentmindedly refines a sketch of his bike that’s been sitting on his desk since high school.

_Questions of science, science and progress,/ Do not speak as loud as my heart..._

He liked the moon and the planets when he was younger because they were always there for him before he had Shiro, and eventually by extension Matt, and then Lance, Pidge, and Hunk. They’re still a constant for him now, the reason for his interest in aerospace and a reminder of when his mother was still around long enough to teach him the names of the stars.

He’d always thought that he’d always be a moon stuck in orbit around Shiro. He was always both the person Keith wanted to be but never could and the person Keith needed in his life to guide it straight that he never had. It was just him and Shiro for a while, and then Matt and Shiro started dating but Keith never felt left out. He just felt like he was missing something.

Until something greater came his way and sucked him into a different orbit, faster and more wild than Shiro’s calming nature. The distance between him and Lance now did nothing to diminish the feeling of spinning helplessly around the planet that was Lance.

And so he lets his little moon spin on.

_**V. Smash Mouth, 1999** _

Keith’s headphones are in his ears, blaring "All Star" on repeat because he’s kind of a sucker for songs he can punch to. He can feel the sweat collecting on the curve of his spine and on his forehead, but he likes the burn in his legs and the feel of wraps around his fists.

_Left, right. Leftrightleftright. Leftrightleftright. Hook, jab._

_Left, right. Leftrightleftright. Leftrightleftright. Hook, jab._

His feet hit the floor to the tempo, walking around the punching bag as if he was dancing. The mat beneath his feet was hard foam, the rubber surface worn by hundreds of students who came into the dojo everyday. 

He’d thought he’d hate teaching kids, but really, he’d had to deal with Lance. It wasn’t much different.

He’d meet Pidges, who were too smart for their own good and could fight accurately but not necessarily with power. There’re Hunks, who lacked that precision but made up for it with enthusiasm or actual strength, and Keith had had to stop multiple sparring sessions so a kid could get ice or some help with some minor injury. There are the Shiros, who helped the other kids improve on their technique. There are the Matts, who were old enough to know not fool around but did, and there were the Lances, who bragged a lot but still needed improvement.

And if he’s still going by this organization schematic, the Keiths are the loners who were surprisingly pretty good at everything Keith taught. He’d give them an extra smile or encouragement because he’s seen that before, in himself. Then he’d roll his eyes at himself for acting like Shiro.

_Roundhouse kick, spinning roundhouse kick, back kick, leftright. Jump, switch feet, switch back, walk ninety degrees around the punching bag._

_Left, right. Leftrightleftright. Leftrightleftright. Hook, jab._

Constant movement. Keith doesn’t like sitting in one space for too long when his muscles felt like moving. Constantly moving. _A red backpack, followed by a black one, then a navy blue, then another black backpack_. Always with a small knife charm, a remnant of his mother. He’d gotten a lot of looks for it in school, but it was plastic and harmless. Besides, it was just shiny metallic paint. No damage.

His students would ask him sometimes when his birthday is, and Keith really only knows it because it’s printed on his birth certificate, which is one of the papers people need when adopting someone. _October 23_. Then the kids would ask him if his parents are giving out birthday cake on Halloween and he always replies with, “Yeah, the big, big ones. But I’m gonna eat it all before you get there,” with a wicked grin on his face, and his students would laugh. He’s glad they do. They shouldn’t have to not know where their parents are.

He needs to hit harder.

So he does, and now he has to move around the punching bag faster because it’s swinging all over the place. His arms feel like they’re on fire, his muscles screaming from exhaustion, but for the life of him Keith can’t stop smiling.

His boss, Kolivan, doesn’t mind that Keith uses the dojo past closing time, so long as Keith turns off the lights he doesn’t need and that the front door is locked. It’s come in handy more times than not, as Keith would just sneak in through the back door at one in the morning and punch his stress out. Considering that he doesn’t really have anything going for him at the moment besides this job, it’s safe to say that most of this stress is coming from Lance.

A month and a half. That’s pretty long, for Keith and Lance.

Fuck, ads. Also, fuck ads.

He waits it out, chest heaving as he guides the punching bag back to its original hanging position. He walks over to where he’s left his bag, debating whether or not dumping his water bottle on his head is a good idea.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hangs opposite the dojo and grins. His hair is pulled back in a braid from his face, something he learned when one of his foster sisters asked him to do her hair (she did his later), and there’s sweat droplets sliding down the side of his face and his tank top is soaked a lot in a lot of different places, but he feels good. He feels stocked up on adrenaline and it’s only when he bends over that he feels the aftereffects of his exertion.

He thinks he hears something around the corner, but doesn’t stop to check. He groans in pain as he slides down next to his bag, but they soon turn into laughs as he feels the exhilaration bubble up in him. Adrenaline is the greatest high one can experience, Keith thinks, finally finding his damn red Gatorade and opening the top. _Exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution._ The whole works.

He straight-up chugs the whole thing because Matt (or Pidge, too) isn’t here to whack the bottle out of his hands and tell him to _cool it_ before he chokes on it. He’s never really liked the flat taste of Gatorade but he’s not complaining about it, either. It’s cool and refreshing on his tongue and he can feel it chill his esophagus as it courses through his body. He chucks the empty bottle into the trash can on the other corner of the dojo, something he’s done too many times to count. Perfect swish, if he does say so himself.

He turns back to the mirror, Cheshire Cat grin now painted pink from all the red dye. He sticks his tongue out at the mirror and laughs at how red it is. He’s so pumped.

His whole body is red, now that he looks at it— muscle straining against skin, the blush slowly fading in the cool night air. He gets up, bounces on his feet a few times, grinning at his reflection like he’s six and has time for giddy recklessness again. He shadowboxes, reveling in the power he feels behind each punch. He’s in control, dammit. This is something he knows well and is familiar with.

He wipes whatever sweat he can reach off with his towel, throwing on a sweatshirt for good measure before he zips up his bag and throws it over his shoulder.

There’s photos on the wall next to the front desk and Keith walks over to it. He’s there, from a toddler to a teenager to one of him now, surrounded by his younger class. He may have had multiple foster families, but this was always a grounding point for him. Kolivan took him under his wing as much as the grumpy old man would allow and never once made him pay for lessons (though Keith suspected that some of it was coming back in the form of a lesser paycheck, but he didn’t mind). There was one point, yes there was the picture to prove it, that Keith would skip school to come to the studio to kickbox. (It was of him in his school uniform at the time, a karate belt slung around his waist). He tapped his foot along to the music as he ran his fingers over pictures. There was one of him actually holding up an L sign with Shiro, who only ranked a few belts above Keith at the time.

He totally forgot about that. He chuckles to himself as he remembers the day he met Shiro.

Shiro was in a class for more advanced belts when Keith snuck in, having just gotten out of his elementary class. Keith used the back door, like always. Then, he went to the phone, as was his routine, asking the secretary politely for permission (reallly, it was just out of courtesy at this point), and called his foster parents at the time to tell them that he was at the dojo. He’d gone into the back to put away his stuff in his own locker when a group of rowdy boys came in for the next class.

He’s been knocked around by this group of boys before, so he doesn’t really mind it when they start making fun of his mullet. And his ratty sweatshirt, which he’s worn forever because it’s comfortable and hides his uniform (he’s gotten worse for wearing the damn thing).

So he was surprised when a calm voice settled over the whole melee, stopping the boys in their tracks and allowing Keith to shrink back into his corner. He’d gotten used to tuning out authority figures, so when the boys scattered he looked up, startled. Usually the boys would listen and then wait until whoever it was left, and then resumed bullying Keith until their class started.

“You okay?”

Keith jumped out of his skin. He turned automatically to face the speaker: a guy in his teens, reasonably built, with a tuft of bleach blond hair on the top of his head and the rest shaved into somewhat of a fade. He had a Very Concerned Face on, kind brown eyes peering at him and a lip being worried between teeth.

“Yeah, why?” Keith said absentmindedly as he changed out of his uniform to a T-shirt and shorts. He noticed that the guy’s face hadn’t changed so he added, “They do this all the time when they come in. It’s not too bad.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” the other guy argued. Keith finished shoving his shoes into his locker, managing to close the whole affair.

“They don’t stop,” Keith just shrugged. “At least, until class starts.”

The guy frowned again. “Aren’t you in their class?”

“No? I mean, I ask Uncle Kolivan what I can do and then he tells me.”

“Oh.” The guy stood and offered his hand to Keith. “My name’s Shiro.”

“Keith,” Keith said.

Scrawled under the photo of him and Shiro is the words, “shooting stars break the mold.”

He grins. Thinks of someone he shouldn’t in heels, a golden boa, and a black floppy sun hat, singing those same words purposefully off key with glances that he dared hope were towards his lips, but of course he’s too pessimistic for that. “Fuck.” He was having a _good day, dammit_. Thinking of kissing Lance all the time probably wasn’t healthy. (It definitely wasn’t, but Keith lives to destroy his very being, so there was that).

“Hey.”

Really, Lance should be glad Keith wasn’t wearing his wraps.

****

**_VI. Tiffany, 1987_ **

Lance McClain is not one to run a mile and a half.

So when he finds himself running a mile and a half from Shiro’s house to Marmora Studios, footfalls heavy on the pavement and Tiffany crooning in his ears, he hopes against hope that Keith is still there and won’t punch his nose out. Actually, scratch that. Lance would take a bloody nose because honestly, he deserves it for being a shitty friend. A bloody nose might be not bad compared to other injuries Keith is capable of inflicting.

He slows to a stop. This was the right area, right? A right, two blocks, a left, then— _mierda_ , where was it?

“Red paint,” Lance mutters to himself, “where the fuck is the red paint front?” Then he sees it and curses. It’s across the street and it’s dark. He dashes across the street (screw it, he’s jaywalking) and peers into the front. There’s a light in the back, but he still can’t see Keith. He tries the front door. Locked. _Mierda_.

He runs to the back. Finds a door, which is blessedly open, and manages to slide his skinny ass in. He walks down the short hallway and stops in his tracks, gaping at the sight before him.

Because Keith’s rummaging through his bag and Lance can very well see his ass, _thankyouverymuch_ , and _holy shit_ it should be _illegal_ for it to be that round. _Dios mío_. Lance might be suffocating right now, but what a way to go. Death by Keith Kogane’s ass. He could imagine the obituaries. _McClain Eclipsed by Full Moons. Permanent Blindness due to Too Much Time Staring at Sun._ He can’t be sure he didn’t make a noise because his jaw was scraping the floor.

Then Keith stands up and Lance needs to go to confession, like, _right now_ , because Keith’s tank top is a) tight fit, which is bad enough, and b) drenched with sweat, which makes the problem _worse_ , and _holy shit_ , forget about grating cheese on his abs, Lance was pretty sure Keith could act as a human mandoline slicer and thinly slice anything Lance needed. Any part of the body works, but the jawline is most preferable.

He has to bodily force himself to _look away_ and _breathe_ because his bi little heart can’t take this. _Can’t touch this (dun dundunudun)_. _Ooh_ , he wants to _scream_ and also wants Keith to _wreck_ him. Forget about the argument.

Shiro demanded that he talk with Keith, but Lance is too much of a _puddle_ to even be serious right now.

Okay. Okay, okay, okay. How’d he get here in the first place. Serious time.

He’d been angry at Keith for not accepting his relationship with Nyma. He’d called Keith a bunch of names that he probably didn’t deserve and didn’t even know, considering that half of them were in Spanish, and Keith had yelled more things back at him.

_You’re so hedonistic you can’t even see past your own dick. People think you’re so easy it’s a wonder you manage to maintain a relationship for longer than two hours._

Hot and Angry Keith was maddeningly beautiful and Drunk and Cute Keith was maddeningly beautiful. It was infuriating.

He was so in his feels when Keith called. The apartment was lonely without Keith. They’d paid for the month already and _sure_ , Lance could always just get another roommate, but it felt _weird_ without Keith. The _garage_ felt weird with only Blue Lion there in all her lemony glory, no bright red motorbike in sight. He’d never been so glad that their apartment, Shiro and Matt’s house, and their college were all within walking distance because he was out the door before he could even think properly. His car would’ve taken forever. Well, he had to find the fraternity too, which was an adventure in itself, but the echoes of Keith slobbering all over the phone and the words “hates me” and “more drinks,” which were the only words he could make out of the loud music in the background and neither of which were good things, kept him going. Because he missed Keith. For _noooooooo_ other reason.

When Lance found him, Keith had red-rimmed eyes and an impressive blush, solo cup in hand, and he was tossing back drink like they were nothing. He’d found Keith’s phone below his chair and he’d felt a sting of pain in his chest for a second, realizing that Keith probably accidentally called him or something, but Keith was such a bubbly drunk that he couldn’t stay mad. How could he?

His crush on Keith got much worse that evening, and it hurt even more because Keith thought Lance hated him and Keith thought his eyes were pretty and Keith _punched that jock for him_ and Lance is _so fucking screwed over_.

He _really_ didn’t know what he had until he didn’t anymore.

He saw Keith staring at a wall of photos. He’s come here before, when he had to drag Keith out for milkshakes and burgers after rough exams or when Keith couldn’t sleep. He hasn’t asked about that wall of photos, but Keith’s in a lot of them. Sometimes he wished that Keith wasn’t so private, but three years of waiting were paying off, albeit slowly.

He’d realized when he was running he could be waiting for _years_ , but he’d do it anyways. He’d wait _lifetimes_ because life without Keith didn’t sit right with Lance at all.

He shakes himself out of his daze and walks forward. “Hey.” It’s louder than he intended it to be. This place is too quiet.

Keith jumps away from the wall, whirling around with eyes blazing. “What the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

Lance gulps. Opens his mouth. Closes it. _Puta de madre_ , Keith made him speechless again. “I went to Shiro’s house because I needed to talk to you—”

“No, we don’t.” Keith makes a move past him, but Lance grabs his arm before he could leave.

_He was going away from me._

“Please,” Lance begs, he can’t let Keith go again, not when he’s this close. “Just give me ten minutes, I swear. Just—just listen, okay? Ten minutes, _prometo_.”

Keith just sighs, digging around in his duffel bag until he pulls out his phone. Lance watches him put ten minutes on the timer. Keith presses start. “There.” He crosses his arms. “Go.”

Ten minutes. Yeah. Lance can do this in ten minutes. “Okay, so. I broke up with Nyma. You were right. I was talking to Pidge and Hunk about our argument a couple days later and they knocked some sense in me. She was just—costing too much, you know? Like, it was you first, then Hunk brought up that I haven’t spent time with him in days, then Pidge, and then I realized that I was paying for everything and when I couldn’t hang out with her, she’d get mad and then she started giving me bad vibes, dude. Then not even an _hour_ after we break up, she’s already with some other dude. And I’m sorry. I should’ve listened to you. I shouldn’t have—shouldn’t’ve said you’re hopeless. I shouldn’t have said all of those things. Because you’re not. I’ve always felt second to you, you know? Because you have, like, this grace about you. You literally can do anything you set your mind to and ace it while the rest of us have to work harder for it because you’re literally too good at _everything_.”

He’s been looking everywhere but Keith, so when he pauses go take a breath, he notices that Keith’s face is in tomato territory right now and _dios mío_ he looks so cute Lance _really_ wants to squish his bony face. “I was jealous of you, _cariño_ , because you were — are — everything I wanted to be, beneath all that I’m-so-angsty-and-emo, blahblahblah, you’re a really great person. You’re witty and sarcastic and you’re honest and determined and so hot, I mean seriously—”

“You called me _cariño_.”

Keith is very, _very_ red by now, but Lance just gapes at him. “Are you _joking_? That’s the _one thing_ you pick up on when I’m _waxing poetic_ about you?”

“Well—” Keith’s fiddling with the hem of his shirt, not looking Lance in the eye. “I’ve only heard you call your family that. And Hunk. And Pidge.”

“No shit, dude,” Lance snorted. “I don’t call any random person cariño, only the people I lo—” He claps his hands over his mouth.

_People I love._

Keith glances up at him then, through the few strands of hair that had fallen out of his braid. “You know why I punched the— that quarterback guy?”

“You kinda said something about that when you were drunk, yeah,” Lance mumbled through his hands and then shoved them in his pockets. “Was he insulting my good looks, or what?” He means for it to be a joke, but Keith doesn’t crack a grin.

“He was—” Keith’s moved on to fidgeting nervously, some part of his body moving, but Lance just keeps staring at the beautiful face that won’t look at him, _por el amor de dios_ , but he catches Keith swallowing, “he was talking about having sex with you, but he was, like, I don’t know.” He keeps opening and closing his fists, like he can’t decide if he wants to punch something or not. “The way he was talking about you made me mad, so I just went at him.”

“Were you—” Lance steps closer, because he’s actually kind of curious, and he knows the answer, kind of, but he still wants to hear it because that would confirm everything and he honestly can’t _believe_ this is happening right now. “Were you— _jealous_?”

“Was I—” Keith freezes for a second before he groans and slaps his hands to his face, sliding them down and pulling his cheeks with it — _ooh_ , Lance is _so_ going to nag him later about taking better care of his face—“Of course I was _jealous_ , you nutter, he—” Keith stops, covering his eyes with his fingers. “You deserve so much more than that _asshole_ but he had a chance with _you_ while I was there, _alone_ , watching you _date_ people and have one night stands and I couldn’t _take it anymore_ because I lo—”

“WAIT!” Lance screeches before Keith can finish his sentence. Keith looks like he’s been slapped, but Lance continues on before Keith can do so much as run. “We are _not_ confessing our feelings for each other right now because we can do _so much better_ in here than right now, and this is _so not the way_ I planned on telling you how I feel, and we are _not going to talk about any more feelings_ until we make good use of the stereo system in here and whatever time you have left on your timer.” Not bad for a plan on the fly, McClain. He mentally pats himself on the back.

Keith’s already pulling his phone back out. “Six minutes.”

Lance beams. “Great. Where’re the speakers in here?”

Keith pauses, then points to a setup on the front desk. “That one, just plug it in, turn it on, and put your phone on the stand.”

Lance is already on it. It isn’t long before the start of Tiffany is blaring around the room.

Lance speedwalks to Keith, grabbing his wrists and pulling him to the center of the room, interlacing their fingers.

“What are you doing?”

Lance doesn’t even have to look at him to know that Keith is rolling his eyes. Lance plants his hands onto Keith’s shoulders, stares into those wonderfully gray eyes, and says as seriously as he could muster, “We are going to dance to this song because it’s awesome, and then we could either kiss or declare our feelings when the timer rings or the song ends, because you are not denying me this AU ending, Keith Kogane.”

“Of course,” Keith mutters under his breath but he doesn’t object when Lance takes hold of his hands again. In fact, Keith has this ridiculously adorable smile in his face and _dios mío, su sonrisa me está matando_.

_Children behave, that's what they say when we're together..._

He starts out slow, moving a step forward and back, side to side. Keith moves, technically, but he’s still as stiff as a board. Lance frowns.

“ _Cariño_ , you gotta dance.”

“I don’t know how to,” Keith whines, shuffling with Lance’s movements.

“Hmm,” Lance hummed. He figures simply saying, “Let the music speak to you” is probably going to be unhelpful in a lot of different ways. “Just copy what I’m doing. Like it’s a—a routine, or something.”

Lance then changes his movements to a simple box step. _Forward, cross over left, step back, step left. Forward, left, back, left._ Keith frowns, but he’s glaring his feet, so Lance figures he’s actually listening for once. 

It doesn’t take long for Keith to catch on, and soon he’s in time with Lance. Keith looks up from his feet every so often to catch the smile Lance knows is growing across his face, and he can’t help but toss in a few hip twirls and body rolls to keep things interesting. “You’re doing it, _esé_! You’re dan—mmphhf!”

Lance doesn’t know what hits him first, the realization that Keith’s kissing him or the floor, and even though all of the air is out of his lungs he’s gripping Keith’s stupid mullet and kissing back for two seconds before he pushes Keith, like, two inches from his face and inhales deeply. But really all he’s inhaling is Keith’s shampoo and sweat and _mierda santa_ , that just brought him back from the brink.

Keith’s above him, elbows pinning Lance’s shoulders to the floor and wide, impossibly gray eyes blinking in confusion. “Sorry, I—I shouldn’t’ve, I—”

“‘M fine,” Lance wheezes, then he grins. “You just blew my breath away, baby. Knocked me off my feet.”

“You’re insufferable,” Keith grumbles, but leans in again. There’s no impatience this time, but a lot of savoring the feel of Keith against him, tasting Keith’s lips against his, teeth brushing against his bottom lip. Keith lets slip a moan that Lance swallows, taking the opening and turning the kiss open-mouthed. His hands slip from Keith’s hair to slide down his sides to grip Keith’s ass, causing Keith’s elbows to slip from their painful position on Lance’s shoulder to the floor with a thud. Also, Keith’s butt is, like, super taut with muscle and Lance realizes he’s digging into the Wonderous Ass of one (1) Keith Kogane and _ohmygod, he loves Keith_.

Something must be done about that.

He pushes Keith off of him and to the side, wasting no time in settling between Keith’s legs and attacking that pretty neck that was regrettably bare of hickeys. Such a shame, really. A waste of porcelain skin.

“Glad y—you think so,” he hears Keith gasp out, and Lance realizes he’s said that last part aloud, but he could care less. His mouth is now properly occupied with a task that makes Keith moan his name in breathy little whispers that have shivers running down Lance’s back and his tongue and teeth have just found Keith’s sweet spot, dammit, and he’s not letting this golden opportunity pass him by.

Keith’s neck tastes like the sweat Lance has been smelling, but there’s an undeniable sweetness to it that has Lance’s fingers roaming under Keith’s shirt, feeling every shredded muscle and every little scar that Keith has garnered over the years. He tries to remember all of them, then realizes he has a lifetime to, and settles for placing kisses along Keith’s new line of hickeys. _Te amo_.

He hears the song taper to its end and slowly lifts his head to Keith’s until all he can see is stormy, determined gray eyes. Keith’s hands have been carding through his hair this entire time, touches so light and slow Lance barely recognizes them until Keith’s hands move and _mierda_ , that feels good.

“I love you,” Lance murmurs, and this feels right. This feels better than right— this is perfection. “ _Mi alma, hermoso, cielito, my vida, mi rey. Te amo_.”

Keith laughs, a hoarse, breathy one that Lance has never heard before and he drinks it in because it’s _his to hold to his chest forever_. Keith reaches up and presses a kiss to Lance’s lips — a short, chaste one, sure, but there was an underlying message of _there’ll be more_ in there — and Lance is most definitely close to becoming a blushing mess.

Then Keith ruins it by saying something in Korean and Lance pouts because he’s never heard Keith speak Korean and has no idea what, exactly, he just said. “What does that mean?”

“I love you,” Keith grins back up at him and the heat finally rises to Lance’s cheeks. “Took you long enough.”

Lance gapes at him. “You— I _can’t even_ with you right now. I had to sort out being your friend, then you punching the guy, then you drunk, then Nyma—give _un esé_ a break, _mi novio_. I’m still mad about that, you know. You shouldn’t’ve sacrificed your scholarship for lil ol’ _me_ , _idiota_. No matter what that kid said—he was a _terrible_ fuck and I regretted every moment of it.”

“No doubt about that,” Keith chuckles through his nose. He flips them over and noses into Lance’s neck, the sensation short-circuiting Lance’s brain. He may have forgotten his own name for a second there. “Besides, my boyfriend called me a quick study.”

“You know,” it’s getting harder (haha) to think now that Keith’s necking him, but it’s _Keith_ necking him, “you should listen to him, because I’m pretty sure he’s right a lot of the time. Take him on a date or something. Or, get back at Matt and Shiro for all the times they’ve hit home runs in the bedroom next door.”

Keith stops necking Lance and stares at him, ignoring Lance’s whine of protest. “How do _you_ know about _that_?”

Lance huffed. “Are you kidding me? They’re so gay for each other that they won’t stop _eye-fucking_ every two seconds. Now are you gonna do the same to me or what?”

“Is that a challenge?”

Lance stares at him as seriously as he did when he decided to dance with Keith. “ _Mi amor_ , I’ve been in love with your emo ass ever since you said you listened to Lady Gaga, which, incidentally, was the first day I met you even though I’ve only figured the ‘I love you’ part ten minutes ago. _Of course_ it’s a _fucking challenge_.”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a while and Lance begins to panic, thinking that _maaaaaaaybe_ he’s said something wrong. Then Keith laughs. “You know, I would’ve given everything I had to hear you say that that day, during the argument.”

“Mmm,” Lance hums, “better get used to it, _cariño_. I’m not planning on letting you go for the next century.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Keith murmurs, pressing his face into Lance’s neck and carefully lowering himself on top of him.

“ _Te prometo_ ,” Lance whispers into Keith’s stupid mullet. “ _Te amo_.”

There’s a hum that vibrates throughout Lance’s whole body, releasing hundreds of pachinko balls in his chest. “ _Te amo_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Songs mentioned:  
> • "We Are the Champions" by Queen  
> • "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga  
> • "Adore You" by Harry Styles  
> • "The Scientist" by Coldplay  
> • "All Star" by Smashmouth  
> • "I Think We're Alone Now" by Tiffany  
>   
>   
> Some headcanons for this fic:  
> • matt vibrates between each hogwarts house on various days  
> • pidge is a few years younger than the rest of them but she's in their grade because hello she's iconic  
> • hunk works at a coffeeshop and that's where lance goes to moan about how keith is looking expectionally hot today and goddamit he'd like his thighs squeezing the life out of them  
> • allura and lance have stayed in contact this whole time but its either allura hyping up lance to ask keith out (which he never does) or coran using her phone to offer strange advice  
> • shiro shovel talks lance when lance is looking for keith and matt is casually. sharpening keith's knife. in the background.  
> • he also may or may not have a Jason mask on  
> •let's just say that's lance's motivation to run for half of the trip to the dojo  
> • kolivan shovel talks lance later when kolivan makes up some bs about there being security cameras (really keith just texted him that he'd gotten held up with a friend and kolivan made the correct assumption) but lance looks so terrified he lets it slide for once and just says "be good to him, kid."  
> • pidge writes a dissertation at some point because @mytay on ao3 wrote an amazing fic on pidge writing a dissertation on keith and lance and honestly I could see her totally doing that  
> • let's say keith gets back at shiro and matt for being too loud in their......bedroom activities  
> • lance may or may not have had help with that  
> • keith moves back in with lance and takes workshops and classes and stuff about the mechanics of motorcycles, cars, and bikes and opens his own shop once he gets his license and an associate's degree (online, because his college experience was kind of ruined) and names it "the red lion"  
> • kolivan gives the dojo to keith when he's retired and keith's glad that the two businesses are close together because both of them are doing well but keith stresses a lot and that's how lance finally gets him to use face masks  
> • all of their friends pitch in at the mechanic shop and the dojo and everyone's just. very happy and content and even allura comes out from Altea Beach to help out sometimes and business booms because she's kind of a legendary surfer  
>   
> Spanish Translations:  
> • mi hermano = my brother  
> • mierda (santa) = (holy) shit  
> • dios mío = (oh) my god  
> • puta de madre = goddamn it (literally = bitch of a mother)  
> • prometo = I promise  
> • cariño = dear  
> • por el amor de dios = for the love of god  
> • su sonrisa me está matando = his smile is killing me  
> • esé = homie, bro  
> • Te amo = I love you  
> • mi alma, hermoso, cielito, my vida, mi rey = my soul, beautiful, honey, my life, my king  
> • idiota = idiot  
> • mi novio = my boyfriend  
> • mi amor = my love  
> • te prometo = I promise you  
>   
>   
> Find all of my socials on [hdnprplflwrs.carrd.co](https://hdnprplflwrs.carrd.co/). LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS, I love reading them and receiving validation. (thanks)
> 
> **Links for the various crises happening in the world:**  
>  Black Lives Matter petitions, donations, and other resources here [HERE](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/).  
> If you can't donate, here's a [YOUTUBE PLAYLIST](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlhfJSrlPNthnoD1XFDHzmdf6Mpt2pe-2&feature=share) where all proceeds from the videos are being donated to various BLM charities.  
> Yemen Crisis links [HERE](https://yemencrisis.carrd.co/).  
> COVID-19 and others (U.S. Specific) [HERE](https://www.acf.hhs.gov/otip/news/covid-19-resources-services-support).
> 
> MAKE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE !!!! There are absentee and mail-in voting guides to help online due to the pandemic and everything else that’s been going on, and make sure to get your votes in by OCTOBER 22ND so that it has two weeks to ship in and be counted on ELECTION DAY IN NOVEMBER.
> 
> ALWAYS STAY SAFE AND WEAR A MASK!!!!


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